FringeNYC 2013: Old Familiar Faces

Review by Nathaniel Kressen · August 11, 2013

By closely following a playwright’s career, one grows accustomed to their tried and true formulas – the tricks they know will work onstage. It’s therefore a special joy to see a writer break out of their comfort zone and try something radically different. Nat Cassidy – a seismic talent – has done just that with his new play Old Familiar Faces, and while it does not yet feel like a fully realized work, it’s shaping up to be one of his most uncluttered and emotionally resonant projects to date.

The play follows two storylines – one in 19th century England, the other in present day America – that frequently interrupt one another in an extended sort of dreamscape. The first concerns Charles and Mary Lamb, the real-life sibling authors of Tales from Shakespeare. Both are mentally unstable but manage to keep sane by adapting the Bard’s stories for children. That is, until even that loses its ability to keep Mary’s violent impulses at bay, and she starts to worry about her brother’s safety.

The second storyline follows a pair of on-again/off-again lovers who are incompatible in every sense except for their mutual obsession for Shakespeare. Despite the fact it does nothing to advance their acting careers, they find themselves time and time again turning down more lucrative opportunities to inhabit the Bard’s timeless tales. Indeed, like the Lambs, it seems Shakespeare’s language is a sort of saving grace, as every time they try to exist without it (or each other) they feel lost.

Typically in Cassidy’s work, the structure determines everything. Whether it be a no-nonsense noir or a five-act ghost story, he adheres to the rules of cause-and-effect and every nuance yields great mileage. The audience rarely wonders where he is taking them even if the destination isn’t immediately clear. He is a craftsman of the stage, and earns one’s trust from the start.

Old Familiar Faces is the first time I’ve seen Cassidy let emotion and imagery be the driving forces of a story rather than structure, and it’s a thrill to watch him try on another language. He entrenches us in the dualities of mental illness and caregiving, pride and insecurity, all-consuming joy and outright hatred. Characters take flight and are racked with guilt. Others remain and are haunted by time passing. The world of this play is messy and of the gut, not the brain, and yet still manages to articulate the magic of Shakespeare’s work without resorting to didacticism. I can’t imagine another contemporary playwright who would think to use the slang, insults, and bawdy humor of Shakespeare as a way to inform the inner and outer lives of his non-Shakespearean characters. It’s a gutsy move characteristic of Cassidy, and one that perhaps only he could pull off successfully.

This isn’t to say that the script couldn’t benefit from some sharpening. The first act feels directionless at points compared to the second. Two of the characters have a history that’s only hinted at briefly but seems to have had a profound impact. The story of the present day couple can be confusing at times due to its nonlinear narrative. And, foremost, the rhythm is not quite there yet. This last point may present the biggest challenge to Cassidy, for while he’s certainly able to trim away the fat, create a clean narrative, and punch the dialogue like few other writers his age, to do so would mean potentially sacrificing the dreamlike structure of the play that contrasts so effectively with the overt formality of Shakespeare. In other words, his usual tricks are unlikely to work here, as they could turn this play of bleeding guts and broken hearts into something altogether didactic. Instead, he’d do better to travel farther down the new path he’s walking, albeit to an unknown destination.

Tandy Cronyn, Marianne Miller, James Patrick Nelson, and Sam Tsoutsouvas deliver impeccable performances, endowing the three languages of this play – the personal, the Shakespearean, and the physical – with equal power and vulnerability. Cassidy does a solid job in his dual role as director, pivoting the tone from dramatic to comic and back again with ease. The imagery-heavy moments occasionally fall flat, but this could be attributed to the need for further revision.

I’m looking forward to seeing this play in its next incarnation, as well as where Cassidy decides to take us with his next full-length work.